When Legal and Moral compulsions collide….

 1      It is wrong….

It is legally wrong to possess blood bags, or at least found possessing the same. It is wrong to “create blood” by bleeding a donor, even if it is the wife or husband who wants to save his or her spouses life, is the donor. Not just wrong, but wrong enough to put few unsuspecting lab technicians to jail who just obeyed orders of Doctors who had no other option, than to bleed, when faced with a moral dilemma. It is wrong  to bleed and transfuse blood even if you see life ebbing away in front of you, though you as a trained Medical Practioner  knows what can be done.

2      it is not wrong…                      

It is morally not wrong to save lives. It is not wrong to do all what you can, to prevent people who could have otherwise succumbed to the illness by  life giving treatment modalities. It is not wrong for a loving husband or wife to donate his or her blood to his or her spouse.

3      but when wrong is right and right is wrong….

But when the legally wrong is morally right and when morally right is legally wrong what does one do…..?

How did we reach here – this situation? Back in 1993, as the HIV epidemic was raising its threatening head, with the risk of Blood Borne transmission looming around, Supreme Court ordered one arm of the Govt – see that HIV does not spread, by providing only safe blood to the unsuspecting masses. That arm went overboard, created laws and regulations to see to it that this was implemented without any compromise. Excellent work…HIV remained low prevalence for the last twenty years….

But that arm – I am not sure “right” or “left” - did not take into consideration the fact that where we should have had at least 3 to 5 blood banks per district for the 640 or more districts, we had only less than two third of the districts having one functioning blood bank. The “Regulatory hand” did not let the “infrastructure hand” know that regulation functions only if infrastructure is built. Classic case of right hand and left hand functioning without co-ordination.

 

They live and breathe the principle - let your left hand not know what your right hand does….

For every one life protected by safe blood, does anyone know how many lives would have been lost, of women in labor who had no access to blood at all – 10 for every 1, or 100 for every 1…..no one knows. But we know that every day as people are referred off from Tumbagada to Ranchi, Sonbadhra to Varanasi, Makunda to Karimgunj etc. – there are stories of women dying for no fault of theirs…because the moral and the legal frame works collided….!

And the story continues – more and more regulations being implemented – by arms of the state who does not communicate to other arms…may it be clinical establishment act or universal health care etc….

4      when you are expected to do wrong but do it wisely…

But if you talk to the members of the regulatory or infrastructure frame work people – they will informally tell you – do not bother about the regulations…please go ahead and break the law…we know you need to do this…but do it wisely….

How does one do wrong wisely – “Be Gentle as Doves and Wise as Serpents”….Jesus said…can we gently break the law and be wise how we go about it….Or do we stand aside send many off to their inevitable death….

If anyone has answers…please let me know…because with the “regulatory frame work” tightening its fists in many areas, and Babu’s having a field day…this is bound to increase…not only in safe blood but in many other areas….we need answers…or a revolution….of health care infrastructure…and affordable and accessible health care...